rue Education 



MATRICULATION SERMON 



The Woman's College of Baltimore 



October Ninth 
1904 



PRESIDENT 
JOHN FRANKLIN GOUCHER 



^V. OA -^ a■'il^-y^J:i'tc^w 






"The Lord God hath given me the tongue of 
the learned, that I should know how to speak a 
word in season to hi?n that is weary!' 

— Isaiah 50: 4. 

THE two most important things in this world are 
life and education. 
Without life there could be no achievement, 
no consciousness, no improveableness. Inheritance, asso- 
ciation, ministry, enjoyment would be alike impossible. 
Everything would be sterile, unresponsive and without 
initiative. 

Without education there would be no development. 
Everything would remain in statu quo, or deteriorate. 
The term education from the Latin e-ducere, to draw 
out, designates the process or result of drawing out, train- 
ing or developing the faculties or elements of the indi- 
vidual. We cannot think of any form of derived life 
without associating the idea of education with it. Life 
always manifests itself by a series of co-ordinated actions 
and reactions through which it is maintained and more or 
less modified. Every form of derived life must live, if at all, 
within conditions which react upon it. The life may be 
superior to these conditions and largely modify them, but 
this very act of modifying them reacts upon and modifies 
the life. Call it nature, instinct, inheritance, environment, 



growth, development, or what you may, these modifica- 
tions, whether self-determined or imposed, are included in 
and constitute education. 

Everything which one is, which he was not at birth, 
is in the larger sense the result of education. Education 
determines the development and efficiency of one's life and 
is as essential as the life itself. 

Our text is one of great practical value, for it describes 
the character of true education, defines its object, presents 
the ideal of culture and states the gauge for human 
achievement. True education as described in our text 
may be characterized by the one word serviceableness. 
" The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, 
that I should know how to speak a word in season to him 
that is weary." 

The Hebrew word lim-moodj from the root form 
law-mad, primarily means a rod, the physical symbol of 
discipline. As study was largely through compulsion and 
the rod was much in evidence, the secondary meaning of 
law-mad is to teach, to instruct, to learn. This word is 
used seven times in the book of Deuteronomy, and always 
in such connection as to suggest the serviceableness of the 
education referred to. In the fifth chapter we read: 
" Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I 
speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them and 
observe them to do them." The observance of them is 
essential to learning them, as only those who " do His 
will shall know of the doctrine." Law-mad is frequently 
used in other parts of the Old Testament and usually with 
this same suggestion. 



It has a significance similar to the Greek word man- 
than-o, to learn by practice or discipline, as in Matthew, 
II : 29: " Take my yoke (f. e., my service) upon you, and 
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls." And again in Hebrews, 
5:8: " Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience 
by the things which He suffered." 

The education described in the text consists not in 
filling the mind with unassimilated information, nor in 
acquiring mannerisms or affectations. It discourages pre- 
tense of every sort, condemns selfishness and discredits all 
manner of shams and superficiality. It does this by requir- 
ing each one to think and act for himself, but to think 
and act with the most careful regard for the need of 
others, thus drawing out and developing his character, 
his individuality, his personal powers of body and mind, 
will and soul, through application and service. " That 
I should know how to speak a word in season (give appro- 
priate ministry) to him that is weary." 

The true education affects the entire personality. It 
is both a science and an art, calling into play not only 
the passive and receptive faculties but also the active and 
creative ones. It includes these four things in particular: 

1. The acquisition of knowledge. — "That I should 
know." 

2. Skill in expression. — " How to speak " — not learn- 
ing or the acquisition of knowledge simply, but — " The 
tongue of the learned, that I should know how to 
speak " — to minister appropriately. 



3. The perception of facts, conditions and relations. — 
** A word in season to him that is weary " — his condition 
is to determine the what, when and how of our service. 

4. It includes motive. — " That," in order that, for 
this purpose, namely, that I may personally relieve human 
need by personal ministry. Serviceableness is the divine 
idea of culture and the gauge for human attainment. 

It is interesting to note that this characteristic of true 
education, which was taught through Moses to the ignor- 
ant Israelites thirty-three and a half centuries ago, which 
was emphasized by Christ when persecuted and maligned, 
which was illustrated by Paul in his various epistles, and 
is everywhere insisted upon in the Bible, is a principle upon 
which the most advanced teachers of pedagogical science 
agree to-day. 

Mediaeval education found its aim in absorbing a 
certain quantity or body of knowledge, i. e., in the exer- 
cise of memory by cramming facts and statements. Mr. 
Nicholas Murray Butler says, " It is absolutely impossible 
for us to identify education with mere acquisition of learn- 
ing." Mr. G. Stanley Hall says, " Love is the greatest 
thing in the world and to fix it upon the greatest objects 
in the world is the end and aim of education." Love is 
always the spirit of service. Mr. John Dewey says, " The 
most important training for the child is in habits of serv- 
iceableness." 

Mr. Thomas Davidson in " The Education of the 
Greek People " says, " In so far as it depends upon con- 
scious exertion, education is that process by which the 



human being is able to transcend his original nature and 
be the most desirable thing that he can be. Modern peda- 
gogics more and more strive not to make the pupil 
informed but to enable him to make good use of the 
information which he acquires." 

In the elementary schools all over Europe, the ideas 
of training, rather than the ideas of instruction, are 
insisted upon, and the better schools in this country are 
trying to develop habits of unselfish, serviceable activity. 
The consensus of the most advanced educators is that 
" the end of all education is right living," and the school 
should aim at social efficiency through the development of 
character. 

" A sound mind in a sound body " was the Greek idea; 
the development of the will was the Roman objective; 
the idea of Christian education and the problem of peda- 
gogics is to co-ordinate and develop the functions of m.ind 
and body,' will and soul, so as to secure the largest serv- 
iceableness. This is the root idea taught by our text. The 
objective it sets forth is personal efficiency to relieve 
human need. — " That I should know how to speak a word 
in season to him that is weary." 

This objective finds its obligation in each of the three 
fundamental relations of the individual, and satisfies the 
demands of each. 

I. Man's first and most intimate relation is with him- 
self. His primary responsibility is for his own life, not 
for its beginning but in a very personal sense for its con- 
tinuance, for its development and for its results. In this 



relation, if anywhere, we might expect to find a demand, 
or at least a justification for self-seeking, but there is no 
more urgent necessity for unselfish ministry to the needs 
of others than in one's responsibility for his own life. 

Every sane man judges the unknown by the known. 
The only way a person can interpret others is by himself. 
A magnanimous and gracious man always lives in a kindly 
world. 

The world is exact in its debits and credits, and sooner 
or later balances accurately every man's account. The 
only way to meet one's responsibilities and discharge one's 
obligations is by living a life of helpfulness, that is by the 
enlargement of one's virtues through service, and storing 
one's memory with the record of kindness to one's fellows. 
" The only competition worthy of a man is with himself." 

Life is intensely practical. Conscience, like the heart, 
is never entitled to a vacation, and conscience makes cow- 
ards of every derelict. Love is not a fancy, but the great 
transforming, constructive force of the universe. Lov- 
ableness is not an accident, but an achievement, a charac- 
teristic of the true education. Duty is more than a theory 
and helpfulness is not a pastime. Character is no chance 
nor transient product, neither is it a non sequitur, and 
destiny is not an arbitrary assignment. 

What a person is determines what he can do, as what 
he does strengthens and develops what he is. Each per- 
son is the architect and builder of his own character, and 
its glory or its shame is his own personal inheritance. 
Every thought expresses itself in action, unless another 
thought supervenes and its author is responsible for its 

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tendency. Every action and every thought, repeated, 
tends to form a habit; habits constitute and reveal char- 
acter, and character is destiny; for "as a man thinketh 
in his heart, so is he." " Whatsoever a man soweth that 
shall he also reap." 

" The moving Finger writes, and having writ, 
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit 
Shall turn it back to cancel half a line. 
Nor all your Tears wash out a word of it." 

RUBIAYAT, 71. 

As has been said by another, '* Do not flatter yourself 
that your thoughts are under due control, your desires 
properly regulated, or your dispositions subject as they 
should be to Christian principle, if your intercourse w^ith 
others consists mainly of frivolous gossip, impertinent 
anecdotes, speculations on the character and affairs of your 
neighbors, the repetition of form^er conversations, or a dis- 
cussion of the current petty scandal of society; much less 
if you allow yourself in careless exaggeration upon all 
these points and that grievous inattention to exact truth 
w^hich is apt to attend the statements of those w^hose con- 
versation is made up of these materials." 

" Prune thou thy words ; thy thoughts control 
That o'er thee swell and throng; 
They will condense within thy soul, 
And change to purpose strong." 

— ^J. H. Newman. 

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It is the glory of humanity that every person has as a 
part of his original endowment an essential principle 
which will not be satisfied with less than the best he may 
attain. This principle is restive with error, condemns 
any effort contrary to its accepted standard of right and 
felicitates itself upon a generous thing successfully done 
or faithfully attempted. Human nature and divine grace 
are adjusted to the development of this principle. Its uni- 
versality and persistence account for the trend and attain- 
ments of humanity. It thrives by ministry and rejoices in 
service. Julius Caesar said there was no music so charm- 
ing in his ears as the request of his friends and the sup- 
plications of those in want of assistance. Cato, at the close 
of his eventful life, declared that the greatest comfort of 
his old age was the pleasing remembrance of the many 
benefits and friendly offices which he had done to others. 
The Christ has said, and His word is final, " It is more 
blessed to give than to receive." The greatest joy of liv- 
ing, a joy which bringeth no sorrow, is to relieve human 
need by personal ministry, to *' speak a word in season to 
him that is weary." It is an investment the angels might 
covet. No investment makes larger personal returns. 

As Mrs. Browning sings: 

" A child's kiss 
Set on thy sighing lips, shall make thee glad, 
A poor man served by thee, shall make thee rich, 
A sick man helped by thee, shall make thee strong, 
Thou shalt be served thj^self by the sense 
Of service which thou renderest." 



The opportunities are always at hand to make such 
investments, to develop skill and to enrich one's character. 

A soul, struggling, overburdened, exhausted or dis- 
couraged, with ability and resources dormant or tempo- 
rarily non-productive, may be heartened by a word spoken 
in season. All which that soul accomplishes forever after 
will pay tribute to the word which brought sympathy, 
counsel, admonition, reproof, suggestion, or inspiration to 
hope and effort in the hour of its need. No wonder the 
wise man said, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold 
in pictures of silver." No wonder the great apostle 
exhorts, " Let your speech be always with grace, sea- 
soned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to 
answer every man." 

To " know how to speak a word in season to him that 
is weary " requires perception, that we may detect the con- 
dition and its cause; it requires resourcefulness and skill 
that we may command and communicate the proper min- 
istry " a word in season." Perception, resourcefulness, 
skill come through leisure from one's self, love for human- 
ity, consecration to God, and experience in service for 
others. Service for others is the true enrichment of self. 
As Mr. Martineau has said, " It is surprising how prac- 
tical duty enriches the fancy and the heart, and action 
clears and deepens the affections. Indeed, no one can 
have a true idea of right until he does it, any genuine 
reverence for it until he has done it often and with cost, 
any peace ineffable in it until he does it always and with 
alacrity. Does any one complain that the best affections 
are transient visitors with him and the heavenly Spirit a 



stranger to his heart? Oh, let him not go forth on any 
strained wing of thought in distant quest of them, but 
rather stay at home and set his heart in the true order of 
conscience, and of their own accord the divinest guests 
will enter." 

How wonderfully Jesus illustrated the refreshment 
and power of service. This was His mission. Of Him 
Isaiah prophesied, " Jehovah hath anointed me to preach 
good tidings unto the poor; He hath sent me to bind up 
the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and 
the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Of 
Him it was testified by the officers sent to arrest Him, 
" Never man spake like this man." 

Consider Him at the well near Sychar; He and His 
disciples had been journeying from Judea to Galilee, along 
the hot and dusty roads, through Samaria. Fatigued with 
the journey, Jesus sat weary by the well while His dis- 
ciples went to the city near at hand to buy meat. When 
they returned they found Him whom they had left so 
weary under a spiritual tension of deepest interest. Know- 
ing His hunger and His fatigue from journeying they 
urged Him to eat of the food they had procured, but He 
answered their solicitude with the statement, *' I have 
meat to eat that ye know not of." What was this myste- 
rious nourishment? The joy of service. 

While resting by the well a woman of Samaria came 
for water; He perceived her restlessness of spirit and read 
in her look her hunger of heart. She, a Samaritan woman, 
expected scorn or contempt from the Jewish man she sup- 
posed Him to be, but was met with supplication. He 



requested of her a service, simple and natural, which 
apparently she only could render at that time — " Give me 
to drink." Her surprise voiced Itself In an Inquiry which 
invited the revelation He gave her. His ministry trans- 
formed her and refreshed Him; for the passion of the 
sympathizing Saviour is to serve. Receptivity Is His 
opportunity, to bring joy to the sorrowing Is His enrich- 
ment, and He was the perfect man. 

Every act of selfishness, every unkind word, every 
ungracious thought, is evidence of crudeness, unhealth- 
fulness or deformity of spirit. Every neglect to sympa- 
thize with the suffering, to help the needy according to 
opportunity, evidences a thriftless spiritual life, criminally 
wasteful of that which is essential to the soul's enrichment. 

His education has been neglected, or sadly perverted, 
and he Is practically Ignorant of the first principles of true 
living who is guilty of these things. God's purpose In 
your education is that you shall " know how to speak a 
word in season to him that is weary." This and this only 
can satisfy your obligations to yourself. 

n. The second relation of the individual, and in some 
respects the relation most complex and manifest, is his 
relation to his fellows. Servlceableness is an obligation 
inseparable from this relation also. 

" The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the 
learned, that I should know how to speak a word in sea- 
son to him that Is weary." 

Every person should live for others because no person 
can live without others. What would your life be If you 



had no contemporaries, if there were not one human soul 
with whom you might have fellowship, not one with 
whom you could converse, from whom you might receive 
approval or assistance, or to whom you might minister? 
Which of your commonest or most personal possessions 
would be yours if you were the first and only person liv- 
ing? Which of your comforts or necessities or present 
possibilities have you created independently of what you 
have inherited from others? " Freely ye have received, 
freely give," " as good stewards of the manifold grace of 
God." 

The argument from design finds suggestive application 
in the varied relations of serviceableness to ability and 
need. Th'e law of serviceableness in its simplest state- 
ment is, " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to 
you (under the reversal of your circumstances), do ye 
even so to them." 

Your development is the dividend upon such service as 
you render. The investment you must make before you 
can have the best dividends is habitually to " speak a word 
in season to him that is weary," thus keeping alert and in 
active use your every virtue, " walking circumspectly, not 
as fools, but as wise, buying up the opportunity." The 
weary one may receive relief from another. Failing to 
render your service, that opportunity is lost to you for- 
ever. By so much your loss is irreparable and you per- 
petuate your spiritual inefficiency and unfitness for larger 
usefulness. As Mr. Chalmers says, " Thousands of men 
breathe, move and live — pass ofiE the stage of life — are 
heard of no more. Why? They do not a particle of 

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good in the world, and none were blessed by them as the 
instrument of their redemption; not a word they spoke 
could be recalled and so they perished. Their light went 
out in darkness and they were not remembered more than 
the insects of yesterday. Will )'ou thus live and die, O man 
immortal ? Live for something. Do good and leave behind 
you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never 
destroy. Write your name in kindness and love and mercy 
on the hearts of thousands 5^ou may come in contact with 
year by year. You will never be forgotten. No; your 
name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave 
behind as the stars on the brow of the evening. Good 
deeds will shine as the stars of heaven." 

It is a law of nature that a grain of wheat must fall 
into the ground and die to bring forth fruit, and it is a 
law of the kingdom that he who loseth his life for the 
service of God shall find it. God's patent of greatness to 
Abraham was, " In thee shall all the families of the earth 
be blessed." God called Paul '' a chosen vessel " because 
of the great things he should suffer for the Gospel. Jesus 
Christ hath a name high over all, because " He made Him- 
self of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a 
servant and became obedient unto death, even the death 
of the cross." 

" No man dieth to himself." If he attempts it his 
unselfish ministries live on in others securing for him a 
fruitful and honorable life. *' No man liveth to himself." 
If he attempts that he dies; his investments having been 
made in a congested, diseased, defaulting personality 
become non-productive. He who would segregate himself 



from society by withholding seasonable service is guilty 
of spiritual embezzlement and faces spiritual bankruptcy. 
No life Is or can be isolated. The glory of life is in its 
serviceableness. Its gauge is personal efficiency to relieve 
human need. 

III. The third relation of the individual is the most 
important because it determines and makes possible the 
other two. This is his relation to God. " As man is a 
subject as soon as he is a creature, so he is a subject as 
long as he Is a creature." The authority of God Is abso- 
lute, His will is the ultimate source of all obligation, from 
Him we have our life. He sets Its Ideals, He determines 
its possibilities and necessities, and His approval is the 
gauge of ultimate success. 

True education must reckon with the law of the Lord, 
which Is perfect. " In keeping of them there is great 
reward." His revelation sets forth the nature, primary 
obligation and objective of life. " If ye know these things, 
happy are ye if ye do them." The knowledge of them 
must precede obedience, but as the law of the Lord is a 
matter of revelation, how can it be known unless it is 
taught? 

I may not discuss at this time the essential relation of 
the Bible to true education, both in schools and in life, 
but I may be permitted to say in passing, if " the end of 
all education Is right living," a Godless school Is an archaic 
form of social evolution, psychologically defective, a spir- 
itual derelict, and a crime against humanity. No matter 
what may be the mental equipment of a teacher, nor the 

14 



extent or exactness of his knowledge of any special sub- 
ject, no matter what his personality, or his reputation, if 
he is not a disciple of and loyal to Jesus Christ, whom the 
consensus of the world's best men and most accurate think- 
ers recognizes as the Great Teacher, he is by so much dis- 
qualified for the best work and his deficiency is a m.enace 
to the development of the pupils entrusted to him. To 
em.ploy such an instructor for youth is to commit the 
molding of immortal souls to unholy hands. 

It is inexplicable that a politico-ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, which has been for a millennium and a half per- 
sistently oppressive and cruelly intolerant wherever it has 
had the power, should secure by subtle and insidious influ- 
ences the exclusion of the Bible and general Christian 
instruction from the secondary and primary schools of this 
Christian nation; and all forsooth because it cannot have 
control of the state funds and dictate the religious instruc- 
tion; that, too, when the percentage of illiteracy and 
immorality in the nations where it exists is suggestively 
proportionate to the strength of its political power. 

There is in the essential nature of youth a responsive- 
ness to and a demand for instruction in spiritual truth. 
No education is complete without it. The highest cul- 
ture must include the culture of the highest. So persist- 
ent and assertive is this demand that it has come to pass 
without legislation, and in some cases in spite of legisla- 
tion, that the colleges and universities of America contain 
the most Christian communities in the land. 

" Taking the young men of North America as a whole, 
not more than eight per cent., or one in twelve, are Chris- 
es 



tians. In 1902 a careful census was taken in three hun- 
dred and fifty-six of our colleges and universities, which 
shows that of 83,000 young men fifty-two per cent., or 
more than one-half of the student body, are members of 
evangelical churches." — ^John R. Mott. 

The objective of college education is, or ought to be, 
to make a life, to produce clear-headed, sound-hearted and 
broad-visioned men and women, virtuous and serviceable, 
whose lives are quadrated with God and humanity. The 
college stands primarily for this ideal. ** All that is taught 
or learned should be subservient to the paramount aim — 
the perfecting of character." Science, history, literature, 
are to be studied not as an end but as means to personal 
development. Whatever else one studies, if he fails to study 
the human heart ; in whatever laboratory one works, if he 
falls to experiment in the ministry of sympathy; what- 
ever may be one's attainments in philosophical insight, if 
he fails to perceive the heart's hunger and need; what- 
ever felicity of expression one may attain, if he fails to 
acquire the skill " to speak a word in season to him that 
is weary," he has substituted a means for the end and his 
education is a failure. 

Our text makes two very explicit and comprehensive 
statements : 

1. " The tongue of the learned " is the gift of the 
Lord God, and 

2. It is given by the Lord God for a definite purpose — 
in order that, " We should know how to speak a word in 
season to him that is wear}^" 

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Our obligation to God is to minister to His creatures, 
and He says, ** In as much as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me," 
and " In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of 
these, ye did it not to Me." 

Because of the sovereignty of God, because of the 
solidarity of humanity, because of the seminal character of 
personal endowments and the relation of activity to devel- 
opment, and because love is the regnant principle of life, 
true education is and must be serviceableness. There is 
a typical significance in the book of Revelation w^hich 
teaches the exaltation of service. There we see '' the Lamb 
which was slain " in the midst of the throne, honored, 
worshipped, reigning, because He was worthy, having 
redeemed us to God by His own precious blood. 

When we see one doing for others, not simply as duty, 
nor of compulsion, nor for self-advancement, but truly 
for others, we see in process the normal unfolding of a 
soul, the making of an ideal life, the growing of a man 
according to the divine pattern. " He is no fool who parts 
with that which he cannot keep when he is sure to be 
recompensed with what he cannot lose." It is the teach- 
ing of the Christ and the experience of the Christly that 
" It is more blessed to give than to receive." God requires 
for us and of us the best. Therefore, strive to attain that 
culture which will enable you to be serviceable, which will 
qualify you to give with a heart glowing with generous 
sentiment, to give as the fountain gives out its water from 
its own swelling depths, to give as the air gives its vital 
breezes, unrestrained and free, to give as the sun gives out 

17 



its light from the infinite abyss of its own nature. ** Give 
and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed 
dow^n, shaken together, running over, for with what meas- 
ure ye mete it shall be measured unto you." 

This is true education which shall secure to you the 
fulness of life here and an abundant entrance at the right 
hand of God in the hereafter. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




